1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a technique of searching for and connecting with a terminal of a communication party in wireless communication, and more particularly, to a technique allowing a user to readily search for and connect with a terminal of a communication party in short-range wireless communication.
2. Description of the Background Art
Recently, a short-range communication technique called Bluetooth has been put into practical use. The communication technique is capable of wireless communication with data communication speed of 1 M bit/sec within a communication range of 10 m. The communication speed and communication range are kept so low that reduced cost and low power consumption of a communication device can be realized. Such a Bluetooth device is mounted on a mobile phone, a mobile terminal, a personal computer, electrical home appliance and the like. A network can be constructed for data communication between such apparatuses using the Bluetooth device.
The constructed network can be used to implement various applications. For instance, a Bluetooth device is mounted to a mobile phone in addition to a communication circuit for communicating with other telephone devices. The user stores personal information into his/her own mobile phone including his/her address, phone number and the like. When the user meets someone for the first time, he/she can use the Bluetooth device to send the personal information from the user's mobile phone to the other person's mobile phone, instead of giving a business card.
The communication technique allows data communication within the range of 10 m, which is a communication coverage. Thus, in the above-described example, if a mobile phone of another person with which the user desires no data communication exists within the communication coverage by the user's mobile phone, the personal information may be transmitted to that person's mobile phone. Thus, the communication technique goes through a procedure for specifying the terminal of a communication party before establishing a communication line between the user and the terminal of the communication party.
In the procedure, the mobile phone of the user requesting for communication searches for the terminal of the communication party that is present within the communication coverage. The terminal within the communication coverage transmits an address specifying its home station when the communication device is in an active, i.e. standby, state. The mobile phone uses the received address to issue a request for a device name to the terminal of the communication party. The terminal that received the request transmits the device name set by the user to the mobile phone. The mobile phone stores the received device name by associating it with the address. The mobile phone displays a list of the received device names. The user of the mobile phone looks for the device name of a desired terminal from a plurality of device names. The user selects a device name and enters the selected device name using a keypad. The mobile phone searches for an address of the terminal based on the entered device name. The mobile phone uses the retrieved address to transmit a connection request command to the terminal. When the user of the terminal enters permission for the terminal to communicate with the mobile phone, the terminal transmits a connection response to the mobile phone. This allows the communication line to be established between the mobile phone and the terminal.
As described above, in the wireless communication including the communication technique called Bluetooth that allows wireless communication with a terminal within a certain area, a procedure is provided, in terms of security, that searches for a terminal within a communication coverage and selects one of the retrieved plurality of terminals. A display unit of the mobile phone is, however, generally too small to display device names of many terminals at once. Moreover, even if such display is possible, it is difficult for the user to determine which terminal is to be connected with the communication line.